Court Returns Unwanted Stolen Cash to Bank Robber

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Court Returns Unwanted Stolen Cash to Bank Robber

VIENNA, Austria — Who says crime doesn’t pay?

An Austrian court has ordered that a man convicted of robbing an Austrian bank 19 years ago be given back over $82,000 he stole because, in essence, nobody else wanted it.

According to the Daily Mail, former Erste Bank manager Otto Neuman and two accomplices stole over $240,000 in gold bars and cash from his own branch in 1993. Neuman, who was in financial difficulties before the robbery, was caught – but only one-third of the money could be recovered.

Neuman was sentenced to three years in prison. The bank was reimbursed by their insurance company, and the recovered gold was sent to the insurance company, but the $82,000 in cash was sent to the Austrian Justice Ministry where it had sat for nearly two decades.

Neuman’s attorney, Herbert Eichenseder, said that court officials contacted him about returning the money – which the bank couldn’t claim because it had been compensated for the robbery, and the insurance company didn’t want because the price of the recovered gold had increased in value to the point where they recovered all of their losses – to his stunned client.

“I really didn’t believe what the court were telling me but I checked it and it was correct,” said Eichenseder, who says that the money has since been transferred to his client’s bank account.